PromptCrunch vs Anthropic native compaction

Native compaction waits until a Claude conversation is about to overflow the context window, and by then you've paid full freight on every turn to get there. PromptCrunch starts trimming the bill early, spans Claude and OpenAI, and never touches your cache hits. Two lines of setup, then watch the token count fall on your own traffic.

Try it free See the two-line setup

Native compaction is a Claude feature. PromptCrunch is your cost layer for every model.

Both shrink old conversation history so you stop re-paying for it turn after turn. But native compaction only does it on the newest Claude models, at the last minute. PromptCrunch does it on everything, from the start.

Anthropic native compaction

Built into the Anthropic Messages API.
  • Baked into the Anthropic API. Summarization runs server-side inside your request, so there's no second vendor. It only helps when every model you touch is a recent Claude.
  • Claude, and nothing else. No OpenAI, no OpenAI-compatible endpoints, no self-hosted models. Mix providers and you're back to paying full price everywhere but Anthropic.
  • Still in beta, and the wiring is on you. You add the compact-2026-01-12 beta header, then append the returned compaction blocks on every single turn. Miss one and the state silently vanishes.
  • Locked to the newest models. Recent Claude only (Fable 5, Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6). Run anything older or cheaper and you get nothing.
  • Kicks in at the last minute. It exists to keep runaway conversations under the context window, not to shave the everyday mid-length chats where the money actually leaks.

PromptCrunch

One proxy in front of any provider.
  • One proxy, every provider. Claude, OpenAI, anything OpenAI-compatible, self-hosted stacks included. The same integration covers them all.
  • Never worse than going direct. We hold a stable prefix and replay it byte-for-byte, so your provider prompt caches keep hitting. Anything already caching passes straight through untouched, and we go to work on the tokens you're overpaying for.
  • No beta header, no bookkeeping. Point your SDK at our base URL, add one auth header, ship. Your message-handling code doesn't change a line.
  • Cuts early, not at the cliff edge. Trimming starts long before the context limit. On a 40-prompt Sonnet benchmark that took the input bill from $2.56 to $0.64, a 75% cut with identical responses.
  • See every dollar you save. A per-conversation dashboard shows before-and-after token counts, savings, and a model breakdown for every request.
  • One flat monthly price. Plans start at $29/mo. Crunch a million tokens or a hundred million and the price doesn't move.

Where PromptCrunch pulls ahead

Native compaction has one job: keep a very long Claude conversation under the context window. If you're 100% on the newest Claude models and happy to wire up the beta header yourself, it does that job. It does nothing for the mid-length chats where most teams actually bleed tokens, and nothing the moment a request leaves Anthropic.

PromptCrunch covers the rest, which is most of it. Every provider, every model, cutting from the first long conversation instead of the last. Route your traffic through it and the dashboard shows exactly what it saved, chat by chat. The free tier runs on your own requests, so you never have to take our word for it.

Run it on your own traffic and watch the bill drop.

The free tier gives you $5 in credit and 100 requests a day, no card and no sales call. Wire it up in two lines and check the numbers yourself.

Start free How it stacks with caching